


The Thénardier Death Notification

by MerryDew (Honey_Dew_Mellon)



Series: Musicals; A Star Wars AU [6]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Newsies - All Media Types, Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alien!Azelma, Alien!Eponine, Alien!Floreal, Alien!Gavroche, Alien!Grantaire, Alien!Pie Eater, Alien!Thenardiers, Alternate Universe - Star Wars Setting, Gen, Minor Character Death, Past Character Death, Space AU, Those un-named Thénardiers died, depending on how you look at it, past character injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-29 02:50:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18769678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Honey_Dew_Mellon/pseuds/MerryDew
Summary: In which Jack goes to deliver some bad news to the Thénardiers





	The Thénardier Death Notification

**Author's Note:**

> I'm posting again. I wrote this almost two years ago and then left it on my computer. I'm going to work on at least one of the things that I promised and hopefully get a couple of other things up this summer.

Jack paused in the street and stared up at the sign that hung over the bar door, ‘The Musain’ stared back down at him.

He didn’t want to do this. The only thing that kept him from walking away was that neither Snyder nor Pie Eater hesitated. The two just walked right by him and into the bar. Crutchie stopped beside him, his second’s bionic leg had yet to adjust to his nervous system and as such he was, once again, on crutches. He tried to move forwards like he had just stopped to read the sign but the blond didn’t give him a chance.

“You don’t have to go in.” That was true, it wasn’t his job to give out death notifications. That fell to Snyder and Pie Eater, usually he was happy to leave all the files to them but this was the first time that anyone in his squadron had died. He had travelled to tell the family members of all the other deceased and he wasn’t going to stop now. If he could stand through Blanket’s weeping family and the sharp eyes of the people to whom Ash’s will had instructed them to bring his belongings to then he could handle this.

“Yes I do.”

He ignored Crutchie shaking his head and forced himself to push open the door to enter the bar. When Pie Eater had finally managed to track down Acace and Etienne’s siblings the only response that he’d gotten from them was to meet here. The twins had talked about their family only when pressed to but from what little he’d heard they hadn’t had the best of childhoods. Their parents had been complete slimesuckers but they had been close to their siblings, it was the oldest of the latter that they’d come here to talk to. He didn’t know what to make of the fact that Eponine had told them to meet in a bar at midday.

He caught up to Pie Eater and Snyder quickly, Zoater was an imperial planet so he couldn’t be in uniform. He hadn’t known how much he’d relied on some vestige of protocol to get through these meetings. He also hadn’t known just how uncomfortable he could be while in civies.

The moment he had a chance to scan the room he picked out the table of people that must be the living Thénardier siblings. Three Twi’lek-Human hybrids, two young women and one young man. They looked nervous, which was reasonable considering they’d been contacted out of the blue by someone unable to tell them anything over coms aside from the fact they would soon be on Zoater and needed to meet. If he’d gotten a call like that before he’d joined the resistance then he would have up and bolted.

There were only a few other people in the main room, a Zankrei who looked to be in his mid-twenties having his mug refilled with some sort of ale by a golden skinned Twi’lek bartender. Judging by the way that his head hung low it wasn’t the first time that the man’s mug had been refilled that day. A few people sat in small groups or alone at a few of the front tables, most of whom seemed more focused on getting something to eat than drinking

He trailed behind Pie Eater for a few moments before he collected himself and moved to stand between him and Snyder as they approached the table as a group. Snyder gave a curt nod to the three in the booth as they approached before he stepped to the side to stand with his back to them so he could keep his eyes on the front door. Crutchie took up the same position on the other side of the booth so he could keep his eye on the back door as Pie Eater and Jack slipped into the booth. They’d developed a strategy for these meetings and, since there hadn’t been any trouble so far, it worked.

“Eponine.” Pie Eater leaned forwards and addressed the older of the women. Her icy blue eyes snapped to focus on him and Jack could see fear in them. She had some clue as to why they were there, she had to. He hadn’t wanted to believe it when the cops had shown up to tell him that his dad had died in a drunken speeder accident but he’d known why they’d come the moment he had opened the door. Something in a person just knew when someone that they cared about died, they just denied it until they were given proof. “This is Jack Kelly, he was the leader of the squadron that Acace and Etienne were in.”

That was his cue, they’d worked this out. Pie Eater spoke with a calmer voice than Snyder could manage so he handled introductions then, and he had been the one to insist on this, it got turned over to him to explain everything else. He’d been the one giving the orders that day and since he hadn’t been able to look into the eyes of any of his people when they died he instead forced himself to look into the eyes of their families or loved ones. Ash’s loved ones had been the only ones to demand a full play by play of every single moment that had lead up to his death and the moment that he had left the room he had broken down in tears. He hoped, as selfish as it was, that the Thénardiers wouldn’t ask that much of him.

“We were ambushed on a routine ambush job. We were pulled out of hyperspace by gravity well generator. There were several squadrons of tie fighters and one Star destroyer. I took your brothers with me to do attack runs on the Star destroyer so that we could open an escape route for the larger transports. We succeeded in weakening the shields, however it was due to the brave actions of your brother’s that the Star destroyer was completely disabled. Unfortunately they both gave their lives in doing so.” He paused and found that he couldn’t look up at their eyes. Instead he kept his eyes focused on a table stain of an unusual colour as he continued. “If you have any questions as to what exactly happened please feel free to ask them.”

Eponine sucked in a sharp breath and, with his eyes still focused on the odd stain, he caught a glimpse of Gavroche’s elbows as the young man leaned forwards. He forced himself to look up to meet the other man’s eyes and instantly wished that he hadn’t. He’d seen that same grief in the eyes of each injured member of his squadron when they’d come out of a bacta tank and heard what had happened, he’d heard it in people’s voices over the coms when a fighter vanished in an explosion and he had felt it rip through him when Crutchie had been shot down. He hated it.

“How, exactly, did they die?” There was no emotion in the question, a stark contrast to the ones in Gavroche’s eyes. It was likely that he was in shock and there was a good chance that he didn’t really want to know the answer to his question, it could just be the first thing that had popped into his head. Still he had to answer it, if he paused then he never would manage to.

He had to clear his throat before he could speak. “During one of our passes on the Star Destroyers shields, before we had managed to get them down Etienne was hit by one of its guns. He lost all but the most basic functions in his fighter. I told him to pull out and that we would handle the job but he knew that we didn’t have enough fighters to keep up sustained fire. He didn’t believe that he could get to a point of safety so he made a choice and crashed into the shield generator when power flickered so that he could destroy it. It worked but there was no chance for him to eject.” Even if he had ejected he would have been instantly shredded by laser fire but Gavroche didn’t need to hear that.

He could hear Acace screaming again now in the back of his head. That raw sound wasn’t one that he would forget. That wasn’t what Gavroche had asked about and that wasn’t information that he should just throw out there.

“Despite Etienne’s…” he couldn’t finish that sentence. What had he been going to say? That their brother’s death hadn’t been enough? That Acace had needed to die as well? He reined in that line of thought. Going over every detail of what had happened was something that he needed to do but not here. He started again, clearing his throat a second time.

“The Star Destroyer remained operational so we continued to target it, attempting to knock out its guns so that the transports that we were escorting would have a clear path. Newsie 2 was with us and he had to eject which meant that not only did we have a very limited time in which to disable most of the ships guns we also needed to protect him. There was a shuttle coming in to pick him up but the danger posed by the Star Destroyer was still massive. Acace decided to deal with that through an extremely risky maneuver that had only been done once on the record.” He had to take a deep breathe, he couldn’t continue without it.

“Acace took several passes against the Star Destroyer to expand on the damage previously done by Etienne.” There had been nothing that he could do to protect him. Acace had stopped listening to him at that point. Controlling him had been a part of Jack’s job as the squadron leader and he had failed three times in short succession. “Once he had made the hole big enough to fit his fighter he flew directly inside. Star Destroyer hallways are just wide enough to fit an X-wing so he was able to fly all the way down and into the engine chamber where he completely demolished all power sources. I didn’t have communication with him anymore, all I know is that he never came back.” He was certain that Acace had died in there. He couldn’t have survived.

The only other time on record that fighter pilots had flown their ships into the infrastructure of a Star Destroyer had been the Battle of Ession; two pilots had gone into the framework of the _Implacable_ and only one of them had come out. He hadn’t made it away from the _Implacable_ alive. Jack had studied the battle in great detail for a school project so he knew all the details. They had been rushing through his head as he’d waited for Acace to emerge from the Star Destroyer. Jack couldn’t help but feel that he should have been the one to do it, objectively Acace had been the better pilot but his head had been clouded by grief. If he’d done it then the other man might be able to talk to his family now and comfort them about the death of his twin.

The young daughter, Azelma he thought, let out a sob and Eponine instantly slung her arm over her sister’s shoulders to pull her in close. This was their cue to leave and let the family grieve in relative privacy. Pie Eater had already slid out of the booth and he moved quickly to follow. They had needed to smuggle themselves onto Zoater and he didn’t want to be any distance from either Pie Eater or Snyder for more than a moment. He knew that he tended to attract trouble, he’d already nearly ended up in a brawl when someone from Mouse’s mining planet had identified him as an outsider and taken that as a reason to throw the first punch. Pie Eater had wasted no time in knocking that miner to the floor then dragging him away.

Still, as Snyder and Pie Eater headed for the door, he paused after standing. “If any of you ever need anything, anything at all, please reach out. Either to the Resistance or to the Newsies, or to me personally.”

He’d made the same offer every time. Both Pie Eater and Snyder had told him not to, that the resistance wouldn’t drop everything to help the random relatives or friends of one of their deceased fighters but he didn’t care. It wasn’t that he couldn’t see their reasoning but he knew that the Newsies, and with any luck, the Brooklyns would be willing to take drop everything and help. Should that not be the case he knew that he would be willing to do so. If Mouse’s parents cared at all about their daughter’s death he would have been happy to fly a pass across the mining colony and destroy it so that they could have the chance to run from indentured servitude.

Crutchie stood beside him and awkwardly stretched out one crutch towards the booth. “If you guys ever need even to hear more about… anything please do not hesitate to get in contact with us. Acace and Etienne were family to us and that extends to you as well.” The only one to respond to that was Eponine who gave him a nod; Azelma was weeping openly into her shoulder and Gavroche was slumped in his seat, blank eyes fixed on other side of the booth. He wished that there was something more that he could say but he hardly knew how to deal with his own emotions regarding this situation. Crutchie didn’t seem to be having this degree of difficulty with the situation as he returned Eponine’s nod and then promptly headed towards the door, hurrying Jack along ahead of him.

“I could use a drink.” He mumbled as they approached the door, intending for only Crutchie to hear them. This was exactly the sort of place that they would go to whenever they had time off while planet side.

“The why don’t you go to the bar and get one?” There was an edge to those words and Pie Eater glared at him. Jack quickly shock his head and followed as they left the bar. On the way out they nearly bumped into a group of students, the group was led by a blond man who stared at him with blue eyes that where a little bit too vivid for Jack to be comfortable. He ducked his head and a few moments of awkward jostling later they squeezed past the students and back out into the street.

One of the students in the back of the group, a slender man with dark hair and a cane grasped in one hand, had his eyes focused on Crutchie. The examination was enough for Jack to prepare himself to go for the blaster that he had hidden in the holster under his right arm until he saw one of the other men, a tall Zankrei who seemed pretty young despite his lack of hair, touch the staring man’s arm. “Just because you’re going to be a doctor doesn’t mean that you need to diagnose strangers in the street.” The words where whispered but he still heard them and instantly relaxed.

He thought that having completed the death notifications would make him feel better, or different, or just something in general. Yet he felt no different as he and Crutchie trailed behind the two older operatives on their way back to the space port. He was still angry and he still wanted to find the people who had planned the ambush. That however was not his job. He might be able to convince Sarah to slip him any information-

He was torn from his line of thought by the end of one of Crutchie’s crutches slamming down onto his foot. He managed not to react aside from a strangled sounding gasp and when he glared over at his second the blond gave him a completely innocent look. “It’s not a good idea to get lost in your own thoughts while in unfamiliar surroundings, you could step on something.”

“I didn’t step on something, something clumsy stepped on me.” He snapped back and lunged forwards in a somewhat half-hearted attempt to step on Crutchie’s foot in revenge. The blond jumped back and used one of his crutches to bat Jack’s foot off target. He had to struggle not to fall. He tried again, this time feinting with one foot before trying to stomp on Crutchie with the other. The other man swung a crutch at his ankle and managed to knock him over, sending him sprawling awkwardly on his left side. “Damnit.” He grunted as Crutchie stood over him chuckling “This is just unfair.”

“No it isn’t” The other man retorted, extending one hand to reach out and help him back to his feet. “You’re better at hand to hand combat, I’m better at crutch to leg combat. That’s fair.” Pie Eater and Snyder hadn’t so much as slowed down so the two of them had to scramble to catch up.


End file.
